Canoe Rock is a submerged, shallow, current-swept reef East of Portland Island in the Sidney area. I came here on the SEA Dive charter boat on Jan. 16, 2022. In a few local dive guide books, this spot is mentioned as a shallow dive, but I noticed on the marine chart and sidescan image that there is a drop to about 100' on the West side of the rock.
I swam down along the West side of the rock towards the deeper area. The shallows were fairly flat and seemed pretty bare for a spot that gets lots of current. Visibility was about 20'.
I reached the top of a steeper drop-off at about 40' deep. There was a wall and ledges with large boulders that went down to about 80' deep. There was much more life here than on the shallower slope. Other than lots of plumose anemones, the most common invertebrates were cemented tube worms and giant barnacles. There was a small school of yellowtail rockfish and a few copper and quillback rockfish.
I began swimming back up along the top of the wall towards the top of the reef. I saw a small wolfeel looking out of its den around some boulders.
I reached the shallows near the marker light. I decided to swim down along the North-East side to see what it was like there. The top 20' was a flat rocky area. Here, there were mostly green urchins, clusters of short plumose anemones and some patches of pink encrusting hydrocoral.
I reached the edge of a small wall with lots of plumose anemones that went from about 30' deep to about 40' deep. I only had the time to have a quick look at a small area here.
